Step through any file's history without leaving the editor.

A focused, lightweight git-history tool for VS Code. Three small features that answer the question: what happened to this file before now?

▶ Watch the 2-minute tour on Loom

What it does

Walk through commits that touched the file you're looking at — without ever opening the terminal
See who wrote each line with a subdued blame annotation that follows your cursor
Get the full story on hover — author photo, full commit message, links to the commit and PR
Review what changed in any past commit with a real green/red diff view

Features

Time-travel through your file's history

Five buttons in the editor toolbar let you step through every commit that touched the active file:

← previous version, with green/red gutter overlay showing what that commit changed
◁ previous version in a side-by-side diff editor
▷ next version in a diff editor
→ next version with gutter overlay
⌂ return to the current working copy

Each navigation updates the same tab in place — no tab pile-up. The status bar shows which commit you're viewing.

Stepping back through history with the gutter overlay showing what changed

Stepping back through history in a side-by-side diff editor

Inline blame for the current line

The line where your cursor sits is annotated at the end of the line:

Jane Doe, 11 years ago • First working version of cleaned-up production logs.

Updates as you move the cursor (debounced)
Hides on uncommitted lines
Format is fully configurable

Inline blame annotation at the end of the current line

Hover the blame annotation to reveal a card with:

Author photo (from GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket)
Full multi-line commit message
Short SHA, absolute date, and relative time
Copy SHA to clipboard
Open commit in your browser
Open PR that introduced the change (when available)

Works out of the box with public repos. For private repos, sign in once via VS Code's GitHub account or paste a GitLab/Bitbucket token in settings.

Hover card with author photo, full commit message, and links to the commit and PR

Using in Cursor

Cursor's editor toolbar is more compact than VS Code's, so the navigation buttons may be hidden inside the ... overflow menu by default. To pin them as visible icons:

Click the ... button at the right edge of any editor's title bar
Click Configure Editor Title Menu Icons (or similar wording)
Toggle each Don't Git Lost entry to show it as an icon

You only need to do this once — the setting persists across files.

Settings

Setting	Default	What it does
`dontgitlost.blame.enabled`	`true`	Show the inline blame annotation
`dontgitlost.blame.format`	`${author}, ${ago} • ${message}`	Annotation template (`${author}`, `${ago}`, `${date}`, `${sha}`, `${message}`, `${pr}`)
`dontgitlost.blame.messageMaxLength`	`80`	Max characters of the commit message shown inline
`dontgitlost.timeTravel.enabled`	`true`	Show back/forward toolbar buttons
`dontgitlost.host.gitlabToken`	`""`	GitLab personal access token (scope: `read_api`)
`dontgitlost.host.bitbucketToken`	`""`	Bitbucket app password (`username:apppassword`)
`dontgitlost.host.selfHosted`	`{}`	Map of self-hosted hosts (GitHub Enterprise, self-hosted GitLab, etc.)

Free to use — powered by your reviews

Don't Git Lost is free. It's MIT-licensed, fully functional out of the box, with no feature gating, no license keys, and nothing to buy — now or later.

There is one thing that genuinely helps: a review. Marketplace ratings are how small extensions get discovered, and they cost you nothing but a minute.

You can also run Don't Git Lost: Leave a Review from the command palette at any time.

After 14 days of use a single, non-modal notification asks for a review. It shows up at most a few times, and rating or dismissing it stops it for good. If the extension isn't useful to you, dismiss it and keep using it for free — nothing changes either way.